Fatima Kline | 'I'm Going To Run Through The Division'

It’s Kline’s third trip to the Octagon, and while the strawweight from New York hasn’t crashed the 115-pound top 15, a win this weekend will move her closer to the rankings, a place most feel is a done deal for “The Archangel.” She refuses to look past her opponent, though.

“I really didn't know who I was going to get, but honestly, I'm happy with it,” she said. “We're both 1-1 in the UFC, and I feel like we are pretty evenly matched. I guess as far as record, she's eight and one. I'm seven and one, and I feel like this is a good fight for me to get my feet wet in the UFC again in front of another crowd to really show everything I've been working on and just really make another statement with a dominant win over Melissa. I feel like I really belong in top 15. And so with all that in mind, yeah, I'd like to be in top 15 by the end of this year.”

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Kline is well on her way, but she’s not the type to tell the world about it. Like Blanchfield, that’s not how they’re built on the east coast. But put her in the Octagon, and you can see the switch being flipped. It’s why she took a short notice fight up a weight class and at altitude against surging Canadian contender Jasmine Jasudavicius. Kline didn’t get the win, but she made an impression, and sent a message.

“I do love taking these tough fights, and as much as I wish I would've won that, I took it and I feel like I toughed it out and I tried my best and did what I was able to do with the time that I had and the circumstances that were around me,” she said. “And that does give me so much confidence knowing that if I could do that and I could have a tough fight like that, and she's now top five-ranked at ‘25, where does that put me? And every fight's different, but I feel like when you have those tough fights early in your career and just go through the mud a little bit, I feel like it is going to prepare me for the future. And I feel like that fight, and even fights previous that were really tough for me, have been preparing me for each and every fight, especially now.”

Kline left Denver with her confidence level as high as ever, and she took that mindset into her second UFC bout in January against Viktoriia Dudakova. That one ended in the second round, with Kline getting her hand raised via TKO.

“It’s really hard to put it into words, but if I were to say anything, it felt like a weight was off my chest,” said Kline of her first UFC win. “Honestly, coming off a debut loss and going back into my own weight class, I felt like there was so much pressure on me. And not from other people, but I feel it was the pressure I put on myself to go out there and to make a statement. I was previously undefeated, and since I was 10 years old, I wanted to be in the UFC, and to lose my debut, I took it really hard, but I feel like I learned so much about myself, and not only was it relieving to be able to win, but I was like, wow, I know that I can overcome adversity, not only through losses, but through tough fights, as well. And so I feel like I've built so much more confidence in myself now that I recovered from a loss, and I had such a dominant win in January that I'm just really excited to put myself back on another win streak.”

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And as far as she’s concerned, she can appreciate the fighters that jump from weight class to weight class (and she was a two-division CFFC champion herself), but now that she’s settled in as a UFC strawweight, she’s planning on cleaning the division out, first and foremost.

“I really want to be dominant at 115 pounds,” she said. “I want to be one of those champions that nobody is able to get through. Kind of like Merab (Dvalishvili). He's fought so many previous champions and has defended his belt two times. He's now considered one of the best of all-time and he's never even moved weight classes. And so, I look at people like that and I want to be somebody like that, where I'm going to run through the division.”